custom bookbinding - handcrafted - blank book - journal - wedding - bound email - guest book - scrapbook - photo album - diary - anniversary - clamshell box - book of shadows - fan fiction - rebinding

 

 

fineblankbooks.com

Tedra Ashley-Wannemuehler, bookbinder



website banner 3 fineblankbooks

 

More information on the books pictured above can be found in the following galleries (clockwise from left):

Impala and motel sign (daytime) - gallery - intricate

Album with crab - gallery - intricate

Impala with motel (nighttime) - gallery - pop culture

Chevy Cheyenne - gallery - baby

3/4 binding sunflower with copper accent  - gallery - engagement

 

your idea + my craftsmanship = a one-of-a-kind heirloom

 

gallery - wedding

 

This was a great idea for a wedding guest book. My customer solicited recipes from each of their wedding guests, laid them out, printed the pages, and had every recipe on the right-hand page with a blank left-hand page for every guest to sign at the wedding. They had to find "their" recipe they'd submitted and then sign the page and leave a message for the couple on the page opposite their recipe. My customer had a photo of a vintage Good Housekeeping cookbook and she wanted to replicate that look as much as possible. Incredibly, I actually had the right font in moveable metal type (that NEVER happens!) so I could match the look of the type on the original. My customer also sent me a gorgeous mockup of how they wanted the cover to look and I was able to match the look pretty closely. On the original Good Housekeeping cookbook, ther was an image of a tea service. Since this couple would be getting married in North Carolina, they wanted a vintage-looking state outline in place of the tea service and they provided me with camera-ready artwork to have a die made in order to stamp that image on the cover in tan hot stamping pigment. In the end, I had to add a fair amount of blank pages at the back of the book; past the section of printed recipe pages, just to make the spine thick enough to accommodate the lettering layout my customer wanted (a tricky spine lettering layout like this DOES add to the cost of a project). It was decided that those blank pages would be used to hand-write favorite recipes on so this book could be used and added to far into the future.

 

wedding cookbook front large

 

wedding guest book / cookbook

  

- printed recipe pages supplied by customer

- pages oversewn with 100% cotton thread

- custom printed "vintage cookbook" style floral endpapers

- cover is a 3/4 binding with green linen book cloth and yellow-tan linen book cloth over binder's board

- lettering on front cover added using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, and tan stamping pigment

- state outline decoration on front cover added using a custom metal die, hot foil stamping, and tan stamping pigment

- lettering on spine added using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, pewter stamping foil, and black stamping pigment

 - approximately $170

(in addition, a custom metal die was ordered to stamp the state outline on the front cover and that added approximately $120 to the cost of this order)

 

wedding cookbook mockup med

 

This is the amazing mockup of the cover and spine sent by my customer. I cannot always match a mockup, but in this case, I was able to get very close.

 

_______________________________________________________

 

wedding cookbook whole cover sm

 

wedding cookbook spine sm

 

wedding cookbook endpaper sm

 

wedding cookbook open sm

 

wedding cookbook orig book sm

 

 

 

 

 

A guest book created for a wedding held in the woods in this beautiful stone chapel.  The photo was taken by the groom-to-be and he sent it to me for use on the cover. This couple wanted the book to have a woodsy feel. The red ribbon page marker played off the red door on the chapel.

 

custom brown leather pine cone wedding guest book

 

stone chapel wedding guest book

  

- page size 7" wide by 8 and 1/2" tall

 - 40 pages (80 page sides to write on) of lined off-white paper

- stone textured endpapers (this exact paper is no longer available)

- dark red grosgrain ribbon page marker

- cover is dark brown goatskin leather

- raised panels on front and back cover

- inset photograph of wedding ceremony chapel printed on water and fade-resistant Epson professional photo paper

- pinecone on front and back cover added using a custom metal die, hot foil stamping, and blind stamping technique

- lettering on spine added using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, and blind stamping technique

- approximately $240

 

_______________________________________________________

dark brown leather stone church guest book front detail

 

dark brown leather stone church wedding guest book whole cover

 

dark brown leather stone church wedding guest book open

 

 

 

This book was created for a ring bearer to carry during a wedding ceremony.  Instead of carrying a pillow, the ring bearer would carry this book with cutouts for the rings inside.  The wedding colors were purple and cream.  There had to be a very specific mountain range on the front that had meaning to the family.

The bride and groom were going to read their vows out of this book, so their vows were printed on the inside cover and first page of the book. The void inside for the rings is hand-cut (I don't have a machine that can do this...so it's not always perfectly precise) and there are thin purple ribbons to hold the rings in place.

 

custom ring bearer wedding book with purple mountain range

 

ring bearer's book with purple mountain range

   

- page size 5 and 3/4" wide by 8" tall

 - about 100 pages (roughly 1/2" thick)

- lilac endpapers

- printed vows inside the cover and on the first page of the book

- cut-out area inside for rings with purple ribbons to tie the rings in

- cover is eggshell linen book cloth and purple goatskin leather

- raised carved mountain range in leather on the front cover

- lettering on cover added using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, and gold stamping foil

- approximately $280

 

________________________________________________________

 

 

wedding ring bearer book with mountains whole cover

 

wedding ring bearer book with mountains detail

 

wedding ring bearer book with mountains flat

 

wedding ring bearer book with mountains

 

wedding ring bearer book inside ring compartment detail

What to give the members of your wedding party?  In this case, my customer decided to give everyone hardcover cloth-covered journals, that were personalized with their names printed on the covers.  They also sent me the artwork from their invitations and I was able to incorporate that on a printed title page at the start of each book.  The colors used for the covers played off the colors in the invitation design.  Books made in quantity with cloth hardcovers and rather basic cover designs can be a unique and economical choice for wedding party gifts plus, they work for men as well as women.  Using lighter-weight paper for the pages and oversewing the pages on an oversewing machine also helped keep the cost down.

 

custom cloth set of bridesmaid and groomsman gift journals wedding

 

wedding party gift journals

   

- page size 7" wide by 9" tall

 - about 100 pages (200 page sides to write on) of lighter-weight white paper

- pages are oversewn on an oversewing machine to save time and cost

- printed title page with design from the couple's invitiations (the couple planned to write personal messages of thanks on the blank space of the title pages)

- pale green satin ribbon page marker

- cover is green linen book cloth over binder's board

- decoration on cover added using a custom metal die, hot foil stamping, and pewter stamping foil

- individual bridal party names added to cover using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, and silver stamping foil

- approximately $30 each (in a quantity of 9) or $270 for 9 of them (this price depends on BASIC cover stamping and oversewn pages as well as doing more than 5 books at a time)

 

__________________________________________________________

 

hardcover wedding party giftbook journals front

 

hardcover wedding party gift book journals open

 

hardcover wedding party gift book journals all

 

 

 

 

I really like the taller, thinner, rather elegant dimensions of this wedding guest book.  My customer sent me a jpeg of the chapel photo and I turned it from a color photograph into a sepia-tone.  I also removed some distracting elements like signs and painted lines in the parking lot.  The copper lettering goes nicely with the sepia tone in the photograph and the decoration is blind stamped to be subtle.

 

custom black leather wedding chapel guest book

 

chapel photograph guest book

   

- page size 6" wide by 12" tall

 - 100 pages (200 page sides to write on)

- black satin ribbon page marker

- raised panels on the front and back covers

- inset sepia-toned photograph printed on water and fade-resistant Epson professional photo paper

- lettering added using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, and copper stamping foil

- decoration added using a custom metal die, hot foil stamping, and blind stamping technique

- approximately $225

 

___________________________________________________________


 

black leather wedding guest book with sepia tone church whole cover

 

black leather sepia tone church wedding guest book back cover detail

 

 

This set of two wedding guest albums (where guests would write on the pages and photos would be added later) were created for a couple who had their first wedding ceremony consisting of a small gathering in Trinidad and a second ceremony in their native England. They wanted the two books to go together, but not match since each wedding ceremony had a distinctly different feel.  For the Trinidad ceremony, the cover of the album features a cocoa pod (a custom metal die was created in order to stamp this image on the cover in gold foil).  For the England album, my customer sent a line drawing of the church they were to be married in and that was turned into a custom metal die in order to stamp the image on the cover in dark brown pigment inside an antique gold frame (stamped separately).  The church image was sized to fit inside a frame I already had. The colors on the fronts and backs of both albums are reversed, with each wedding location stamped on the back cover.  The couples' names and the date of each ceremony for the corresponding album are stamped on each spine.

custom two tone cloth wedding guest album set with church

 

custom two tone cloth wedding album set with cocoa pod

 

contrasting wedding guest albums

for wedding ceremonies at

two different locations

   

- page size 9" wide by 10 and 1/2" tall

 - 40 pages of heavy acid-free off-white Arches cover (80 page sides to mount photos on)

- covers are brown and eggshell linen book cloths over binder's board

- cover decoration added using custom metal dies and hot foil stamping in antique gold foil and dark brown pigment

- lettering on spines added using moveable metal type, hot foil stamping, and antique gold stamping foil

- approximately $580 for both

- PLUS the cost of the custom metal dies for the cover designs; approximately $120 each

 

_________________________________________________________

 

wedding asymmetrical church sm

 

two tone eggshell linen and dark brown cloth wedding albums spine detail 1

 

two tone eggshell linen and dark brown cloth wedding albums back detail 1

 

two tone eggshell linen and dark brown cloth wedding albums spine detail 2

 

two tone eggshell linen and dark brown cloth wedding albums back detail 2

 



 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

     
     
     

 

 

e-mail contact: tedra@fineblankbooks.com

copyright 2023 fineblankbooks.com